Chickens’ First Snow

Our chickens are not fond of their first big snow. They’re hiding in the sheltered part of their tractor, afraid to venture out in to the couple of inches of snow, even when I dumped hot food out there. (They did come out eventually, but brought each bite of food back under shelter to eat. [...]

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The High Price of Farming

There’s an old dilapidated farmhouse on 100 acres for sale in my township. It’s your typical corn/soybean rotation industrial monocrop, but such beautiful land. And the farmhouse – it’s in shambles, but all I can see is potential. I haven’t even seen the inside; I don’t need to. I’m sure it’s horrible and wonderful all [...]

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Garden and Chicken Update 9/14/09

School is back in swing, and I’m crazy busy. But there are things I don’t want to forget to record:

Blight. All the tomato plants are blighted. Yes, all 40 of them. It spreads fast. We are in the process of hand picking the green ones to ripen or turn into green tomato salsa, and burning [...]

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Garlic Roasted Red Skin Potatoes

I told some friends I’d post this recipe, so here you go! There are bazillions of tutes and recipes out there on roasting red skin potatoes; this is just the way I’ve been doing it. It’s so easy, I almost feel silly posting it. But it’s so good!
We’ve been enjoying our Red Gold potatoes at [...]

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Farm Update 8/17/09

After our first egg last week, Jason found a very thin-shelled egg the next day. It had a hole in it, and it broke as he picked it up. (First eggs can be weird, like thin-shelled or even shell-less.) We were gone for the weekend, and returned to two eggs last night. (They are all [...]

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First Egg!

I couldn’t be more excited to announce that WE HAVE OUR FIRST PULLET EGG! Isn’t it darling? You can’t tell very well from the picture, but it’s teeny. My hand is quite small, if that helps.
The chickens are 19 weeks old now, but since they’re a heritage breed (Buff Orpington), we figured we might not [...]

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Chicken Processing

Slightly graphic, perhaps, but I really skipped photographing most of the gore. Plus, I kept the photos small.
First, we packed 12 15-week-old Buff Orpington cockerels into cardboard boxes lined with newspaper in the van (3-5 per box, three boxes):

The first step was to hang them in these cones. The processor (our friend Brian) would then [...]

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Mulberries

We have at least 7-8 mulberry trees that are really cranking out the berries right now. (Including one that produces white mulberries – you were right, Theresa! They’re super sweet.) If you’re in the area and want to come pick some, please call/email/Facebook me and let me know. We’re trying to pick enough to eat [...]

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Tillers International

I just want to re-iterate how cool it is that  this place is local to me. I mean, check out the classes that you can take there! (A class at Tillers would be the perfect gift for this newbie farmgirl. Just sayin’.)
A description of Tillers International, from their website:
Tillers International is a 501(c)3 IRS non-profit [...]

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On My Mind

1. Eggs in Toast! We made Eggs in Toast this morning, out of our stored dough from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. (Seriously, easiest bread ever. I like it even better than No Knead Bread. And there’s so much you can do with it!) Skipped the bacon because we didn’t have it. It [...]

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